After yet another international break the Premier League is back. And on Saturday at 3pm Ole Gunnar Solskjær takes his tricky reds down to face off against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.
Leicester come into this game with a bit of a mixed bag of form. Of their last 6 matches in all competitions, they have won 1, drawn 3 and lost 2. In the league they sit in 13th position having played 7 matches, won 2, drawn 2 and lost 3. It’s fair to say that things haven’t quite got off to the start that Leicester fans would have hoped for. Having said that they still have dangerous players that can cause United problems.
I’d expect Brendan Rodgers to stick with the 4-4-2 that he has opted for of late. Kasper Schmeichel obviously in net. With Bertrand and Pereira as full backs and Soyuncu and Evans retaining that centre-back partnership. The injury to Wilfred Ndidi means that Hamza Choudhury will look to retain his place alongside Youri Tielemans. Harvey Barnes and Ademola Lookman playing on the wings. With both Jamie Vardy and Ihenacho up top there is more than enough talent in this side to cause problems for Manchester United.
Having said that I do expect Manchester United to be able to get the full three points on the weekend. This can hopefully be a turning point for Ole’s season. Despite some of the changes he is going to have to make. With the injuries to both Maguire and Varane, it’s almost a certainty that we will be seeing Lindelöf and Bailly in front of David de Gea. With Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka either side of them. Fred not returning from international duty till late means that I imagine Ole will opt for Paul Pogba alongside Matic. However, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Scott McTominay lined up with Pogba.
I think Cristiano has to start. We saw the uproar that comes with resting him and right now Ole cannot afford to be taking too many chances, he has to put out some better performances from this team. And having arguably the greatest player of all time as your number nine will probably help that. Now the interesting thing on Saturday will be to see if Marcus Rashford gets a start now that he is back from injury.
I’d imagine that Ole opts for a three of Jadon Sancho, Bruno Fernandes and Mason Greenwood. With a look to bring Marcus on in the second half. Having a player like Marcus back does so much more than give the crowd a boost. His directness and his pace and the way he can skin a defender is unparalleled. He gives this United team another dimension to their attack and gives one more thing for opposition defenders to think about.
With all that said, I’m hoping for a big performance from Man United here. Let’s turn things around and get this season back on track. This next run of games is going to be tough and we cannot be performing like we have done so far this season. We have seen Ole bring us through some tough times and that he can string these runs together. If he can pull something else like that out of the bag, now is as good a time as any.
